12th shipment of Syrian chemical weapons removed

The 12th installment of Syrian chemical weapons was removed from Syria on Friday, according to a statement published on the website of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The OPCW-UN Joint Mission in Syria has confirmed that a 12th consignment of chemicals has been transported to the port of Latakia and removed from the country, the statement said. The organization's director-general, Ahmet Uzumcu, said he hoped the process of transporting chemical weapons out of the country would now be accelerated.

According to the organization's statistics from last month, nearly half the chemical weapons have been removed from the country. The weapons were taken by ship to Italy. The U.S will destroy them safely in offshore waters. Syria is scheduled to get rid of its entire stockpile of chemical weapons by 30 June.

The effort to destroy the weapons followed a chemical attack that killed hundreds of people in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on August 21, 2013.